Skinner and a solution to the problem of inner events

Skinner's treatment of inner states has been criticized not only by cognitivists but also by people who are close to behaviorist views. In particular, critics have argued that because of the limited conceptual resources of his scientific framework, Skinner cannot account for "mental" phenomena such as the qualitative character of feelings, conscious contents, or states of awareness. The present paper claims that these criticisms are mistaken. By paying careful attention to Skinner's strict physicalist position and by employing a consistent physicalist terminology, it can be shown that Skinner is able to account for the phenomena in question.